This invention relates to the field of flexible sheet material dispensers and more specifically to dispensers for handling multiple rolls of web material such as paper toweling and the like.
The prior art is replete with dispenser constructions for handling rolls of flexible sheet material such as paper toweling. Indeed, web material dispensers that hold a multiple of such flexible material rolls are known in the art where at least one reserve roll is held in the dispenser cabinet in a non-dispensing position while web material from an initial roll located in the dispensing position within such cabinet is being dispensed to the user. Characteristically, such multiple roll dispensers include mechanism to move the reserve roll into a dispensing position when the initial roll of material is depleted.
The flexible web material coming from the roll may be led from the dispenser to be supplied to the user by a number of different means, usually incorporating at least a pair of rollers between which the web material passes. The web material may be manually withdrawn by the user and manually torn off against a serrated cutting blade mounted near the web material outlet of the dispenser, a manually operated crank may drive the rollers to feed out the sheet material to be cut off by being drawn against such a serrated blade or the dispenser may have a rotatably mounted knife within the dispensing mechanism cooperating with a slot in a rotatable roller adjacent this knife for the sheet material to be severed or perforated to be more easily torn off by the user. Many dispensers for flexible rolled material include means to measure a desired length of the web dispensed to the user to control the length of web, such as paper toweling, dispensed in each operating cycle of the dispenser.
However, whatever type of dispensing mechanism that is employed in guiding the web of sheet material from its roll and out of the dispenser, in multiple roll dispensers, a problem is encountered in effectively and reliably picking up the leading end of the sheet material web on the reserve roll to feed this leading end into the dispensing mechanism after depletion of the initial roll being dispensed from within the dispenser cabinet.
In multiple roll dispensers this problem of transferring feed to web material coming from a reserve roll after the web material has been depleted from an initial roll has been approached in a number of different ways. Some solve the problem by simply requiring a servicing attendant to reopen the dispenser cabinet and load in a fresh reserve roll when an indicator on the dispenser alerts the attendant that the roll being dispensed is nearly depleted. Obviously, this solution calls for the constant expense and attention of a servicing attendant for the dispenser.
Where dispensers have attempted loading multiple rolls into a single cabinet and the web material is to be dispensed from the rolls in succession, the problem of reliably picking up the lead end of the material on each reserve roll by the dispensing mechanism so that the web is made available to the user at the exterior of the dispenser has not been effectively resolved. Such dispensers in the prior art have involved complicated and expensive structures to get the leading end of web material on a reserve roll into the dispensing mechanism. Further, their complications have added to the difficulties in being easily and effectively threaded by service attendants unfamiliar with the complicated structure of the dispensing mechanism. These structures add to the manufacturing expense and their complexity contributes to costly maintenance with a high rate of breakdown and failure during any reasonable operating life expectancy.